BRANTFORD, Ont. - [...] the U.S. Congress has ousted Alexander Graham Bell - the pride of Brantford - as the father of modern mass communications.

Bell has long been recognized as the inventor of the telephone, the concept for which he developed at his family's Brantford, Ont. homestead. His revolutionary device was patented in the United States in 1876. But last week, Congress passed a resolution crediting little-known Italian immigrant Antonio Meucci as the phone's rightful originator.
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"In the past number of years, historical records and scholarly research have concluded that Meucci was the original inventor of the telephone, long before Bell," said Fossella's spokesperson, Craig Donner. "Because of Meucci's role, he should receive recognition for his contribution."

The resolution recognizes that Meucci filed a caveat on his early telephone on Dec. 28, 1871, which gave notice of an impending patent. But the Italian inventor couldn't afford the $10 to renew the caveat in 1874. If he had, the resolution says, Alexander Graham Bell would not have been granted his patent two years later.
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